How did your free time change from GCSEs to A-levels?

Did you have much less free time after school when in Sixth Form compared to GCSEs? Or was it about the same? And for those of you who do several extra curricular activities-how do you cope with everything? Thanks in advance :biggrin:

. x

Reply 1

Shah09

1

Expect less free time. Period.

A Levels and the content that you learn is more informative and more demanding, so it would make sense that more time would be needed to learn and understand it. However, it's not a hugely drastic change by any means.

Honestly, just make sure to keep on top of your work. Make use of your time during school and try and absorb and understand as much as possible and you'll make more free time for yourself.

Reply 2

manchesterunited15

Original post by Shah09

Expect less free time. Period.

A Levels and the content that you learn is more informative and more demanding, so it would make sense that more time would be needed to learn and understand it. However, it's not a hugely drastic change by any means.

Honestly, just make sure to keep on top of your work. Make use of your time during school and try and absorb and understand as much as possible and you'll make more free time for yourself.

We're not in America.

Reply 3

sarah_m1995

Yeah like my school gave us much more free time but most of that is filled with work. Depends on how much you decide to do yourself, and other activities/ jobs. Doing extra work helps your grade lots but is time consuming. But overall less free time than gcse

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Reply 4

Giant

11

Personally I found that I had more free time without having to constantly worry about courseworks for 5 different subjects that required massive amounts of work that required very little thought.

Also the subjects I took meant that I was much more focused when I did work and I did most of it in the run up to exams. Overall, I found that you work less hours but much it is more intense when you are actually working

Reply 5

CosmicVengeance

13

Had much less time never played games on the Pc for all 2 years within the college days, compared to playing hours at gcse

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Reply 6

zxh800

13

Original post by manchesterunited15

We're not in America.

And we're not in Iran. He can talk how he likes.

Reply 7

manchesterunited15

Original post by zxh800

And we're not in Iran. He can talk how he likes.

Of course he can, but he'd be wrong.

Reply 8

Blue56

15

More free time on paper + more hard work = less free time.

Basically, in order to do well, you have to make a nest for 2 years in the library or any other relevant area of study. However, it's nice to just walk out of the library to grab a coffee or whatnot whenever you please. Don't waste your free periods, they are so valuable.

Reply 9

VSophie

You could think of it like you'd have less free time but you're doing subjects you enjoy and want to study

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Reply 10

chubbycharms

Personally my days were shorter in the sense that I would have for example lessons from 9-12 and then that was it. So I on a 9-12 day I would typically spend about 2- 3 hours after lessons in the library doing work. Then I would still have my evenings free. A month to 6 weeks before exams this would obviously change a bit though.

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Reply 11

loua96

It really depends on the amount of free time your college give you, which subjects you do and how long you want to spend on them outside of school. Because I was able to manage my time well and do the majority of homework in my frees, I had a lot more free time at home. Some of this was taken up by revision, but still a LOT more than GCSE - perhaps this was because I had less subjects and no coursework or "controlled assessments" ( :rolleyes:

) to do work for.

Just stay organised and you'll be absolutely fine! :biggrin:

Reply 12

Venus fly trap

OP

8

Original post by Giant

Personally I found that I had more free time without having to constantly worry about courseworks for 5 different subjects that required massive amounts of work that required very little thought.

Also the subjects I took meant that I was much more focused when I did work and I did most of it in the run up to exams. Overall, I found that you work less hours but much it is more intense when you are actually working

Thanks! I know what you mean- at GCSE there were always courseworks/controlled assessments to prepare, and even though they were easy they were still very time consuming. Art, catering and languages probably being the worst. x

Reply 13

Venus fly trap

OP

8

Original post by loua96

It really depends on the amount of free time your college give you, which subjects you do and how long you want to spend on them outside of school. Because I was able to manage my time well and do the majority of homework in my frees, I had a lot more free time at home. Some of this was taken up by revision, but still a LOT more than GCSE - perhaps this was because I had less subjects and no coursework or "controlled assessments" ( :rolleyes:

) to do work for.

Just stay organised and you'll be absolutely fine! :biggrin:

This is a great answer thanks! Yeah at GCSE I was constantly preparing for controlled assessments/coursework in several different subjects, which although they were easy, they were very time consuming. I'll try and do the majority of homework in frees, so then my evening can be free! x

Reply 14

amarjit700

It didn't change... It disappeared :smile:

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Reply 15

Bloxorus

16

What free time?

On a serious note, you'll have to spend less time in lessons but the amount of work you'll be expected to do outside lessons will exceed the difference by a mile.

Reply 16

Azure-blue

1

It kind of depends on how long travel takes. In my last college I spent three hours per day travelling, sometimes four hours. But I still had 6-9 hours of free time every day.

This year I'm doing four AS but it only takes 45m to get to my new college, so that's half the travel time, and 45m is the upper quartile. Despite doing four subjects, I'll have more free time than I did before.

It also depends on how much you actually socialise. See, because I have no friends because I smell and no one likes me, I never go out and I just stay indoors baiting people in to flame wars, so I don't really mind about the absence of free time.

Reply 17

Ben Kenobi

I actually had more time during school with all them free periods. After school, however I had to spend a little more time, because teachers started to give out homework, whereas at GCSE there was practically none. It is more in depth at A-Level, but you have less subjects than at GCSE.

Reply 18

lucindaellaaa

5

A Levels will ruin your life. If you don't do at least 5 hours of work per subject a week AT LEAST you won't see results, so your free time goes down.

Reply 19

Azure-blue

1

Original post by lucindaellaaa

A Levels will ruin your life. If you don't do at least 5 hours of work per subject a week AT LEAST you won't see results, so your free time goes down.

Not really. It depends on how intensively you're studying while you actually are. Not just the DURATION, you can't just say I'M GOING TO STUDY FOR 5 HOURS and then expect those five hours to be as valuable as anyone else's five hours.

Some people just learn faster than others, some people don't, sometimes some parts of a subject are harder to pick up than others, and in that case it takes MORE time. I think that five hours per subject is a little ridiculous though, but even with three subjects that's only 15 hours of studying per seven days, which is what, just over two hours average per day. If you can't handle that, how on Earth are you going to expect to work a 40 hour week as a full-time employee?

It also depends on what your social life is actually currently like. If you spend 10 hours a day walking around shopping centres with your degenerate pals then yeah, I'd say studying A Levels restricts your ability for window shopping in that case.

(edited 10 years ago)

How did your free time change from GCSEs to A-levels?

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